Poetry is what gets lost in translation-Robert Frost

October 21, 2018

Fort Graveyard

Kihachi Okamoto's Fort Graveyard (1965) is a curious war film. It is both a serious anti-war film and something of a comedic farce. Toshiro Mifune stars as anti-authority sergeant Kosugi who is sent on a suicide mission after striking his superior officer-Satsuma (Tatsuya Nakadai). He is assigned a troop of jazz musicians who open the film by playing a raucous version of "When the Saints Go Marching In", which seems to be a curious song to be played by the Imperial Army while at war with the decadent USA. Comfort women appear and Rieko Dan plays Oharu, a Korean comfort woman devoted to Kosugi. The film alternates between comic gags and action as the rag tag group captures and then loses a fort at great cost as the war finally expires as their actions are for nil.